Sunday, September 25, 2011

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Our motto at the office is, "You can't make this shit up." We even talked about having shirts printed! For years, we've believed we could write stories of the things our CASA families have done and could pass them off as fiction, because no one would believe they were true!

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit could be one of the stories we tell in our office. Mark Seal interviewed more than 200 people who knew Clark Rockefeller in his various locations and identities. The ultimate con man, Rockefeller (originally Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter and then many other names) was constantly changing his identity as he moved up the social ladder.

This book was absolutely fascinating - I didn't want to put it down. It begins with Rockefeller's kidnapping of his own daugther during a supervised visit and culminates with a court hearing for that charge. His wife, an incredibly successful business woman, describes the typical domestic violence relationship dominated by power and control. Her realization that her husband wasn't who he claimed to be and the courage it took her to leave a dangerous man was the highlight of the book for me.